5.1 Warlock changes

[Dalmasca1]

Funny to see someone from blizzard say that. Usually it's just impossible to change something is how they make it seem.
I think this is because the people who wrote the original code for this game no longer work there and the new people are to scared to touch old code they know nothing about. Green fire=to hard and original backpack is just to hard to make bigger.

Ya, it really is this simple for buff/debuff designations. The API has gone through so many revamps to streamline code changes in the past couple of years. You should take a look if that sort of thing interests you.

As for the green fire, I remember the response very accurately:
"Each green animation would be a whole new spell as far as the game is concerned." The way the spells are animated would also require a good investment of art resources; not just a simple tweak on the color slider as some believe.

Not exactly sure what the technical hindrance is to the backpack, other than sorting out how everyone's items fall into it, but I think someone recently said -quite aptly- that the larger backpack doesn't solve the space limitation issue. It just delays it. Investing resources in a [bag-free] tabard-sorting system and figuring out which items can be bag-free currency is probably more efficient.

[Fanatik]

Has there been any discussion on shard generation in affliction? I would love to see something similar to chi/healing orbs be implemented for locks where when an enemy dies, a chance to proc a "spirit shard" over the corpse allows the lock to gain a soul shard by running to it. Another idea would be to return a soul shard after completing a malefic grasp channel or building up charges based on ticks of malefic grasp.

Also, will the elegon encounter ever allow locks to gain shards via drain soul from energy orbs?

[Deleted]

Yeah and it would be nice to check if shards/embers are correctly awarded in the two raids coming in ten days :/

[Jessicka]

Pet Health snowballs into soul link. I'll keep an eye on this though. My voidwalker feels immortal. Way *too* survivable honestly.

I had a look into this after watching my Service Felguard die (yet again) to something stupid, it seem the Void has ~50% armor, whereas everything else has only 40%; is this correct (am not using the Glyph btw)? I also recall a post by GC saying pets should receive 170% of armor, or more if you're a clothy, and yet the character panel shows only a 100% share.

[Grubjuice]

Has there been any discussion on shard generation in affliction? I would love to see something similar to chi/healing orbs be implemented for locks where when an enemy dies, a chance to proc a "spirit shard" over the corpse allows the lock to gain a soul shard by running to it. Another idea would be to return a soul shard after completing a malefic grasp channel or building up charges based on ticks of malefic grasp.

Also, will the elegon encounter ever allow locks to gain shards via drain soul from energy orbs?

the first point is redundent where drain soul works,
where drain soul does not work, i have no idea why they would do that other than specifically to prevent locks from being too powerful, since all specs benefit from killing adds.

[Scathbais]

Xelnath,

I have been raiding as mostly affliction, but as destro only on the Gara'jal fight (for the burst in the spirit realm).
Why? Destro does not do competitive damage (i.e. well behind the damn dirty mages on the meters).
But, Affliction is virtually useless on adds without purposefully saving/generating shards in advance, thus the switch to destro on Gara'jal.

Things I've noticed from raiding/playing as affliction:
1) Soul burn can be cast multiple times, even if you didn't use your last burned soul. Is this intentional? For example, if you sb:soul swap and your target is our of range, then sb:ss a new target, you essentially waste a shard. Please fix this.

2) KJ Cunning is a double penalty for affliction. Slower casts for our filler spells AND slower additional dot ticks. Recall the extra dots while channeling MG and DS used to be tied to the dots themselves. With the change to the DS/MG mechanics, the extra dot ticks are also slowed under KJC's passive effect.

3) Please restore Seed of Corruption to its WoLK glory. I cannot stand the new SoC. Not at all.

For both Affliction and Destro: Certain adds do not generate embers/shards when killed. This gimps our dps on multi-target fights. An example of this are Undying Shadows in the Spirit Kings encounter. If we are using a resource (shard/ember) to burn the add, we have no way to get it back. Is this intended or a bug? Celestial protectors (Elegon) are another problem. They don't technically die until they complete their Total Annihilation cast (4 second cast time). So we are forced to channel DS or use Shadowburn on a technically dead target if we want to generate additional resources.

Destro only:

1) In general, it is difficult to store embers for a burn phase unless we simply stop casting to let our mana bar refill. Fel Flame is not a useful movement ability for obvious reasons (20% mana cost).

2) I also use Havoc with a [@focus][@mouseover] macro. There has to be a way to improve this ability to make it more competitive with Affliction/Demo on 2 target fights. I like that Shadowburn works with it.

3) What kind of improvement are you seeing in Desto damage with the extra embers being generated by Conflag? My thought is that Immolate regular ticks should also generate embers and that fel flame crits should generate 2 embers instead of one.

4) Lastly our AOE suffers when we only have a few targets in that we are not regenerating embers fast enough under F&B to maintain F&B Incinerate spam. But I do like the Destro AOE rotation (much better than affliction).

Over all, I really enjoy playing a warlock and the MoP changes. Just wanted to mention a few of the issues I encountered so far while raiding. Thank You!

[Ridcully]

1) Soul burn can be cast multiple times, even if you didn't use your last burned soul. Is this intentional? For example, if you sb:soul swap and your target is our of range, then sb:ss a new target, you essentially waste a shard. Please fix this.

3) Please restore Seed of Corruption to its WoLK glory. I cannot stand the new SoC. Not at all.

I agree with those two suggestions. Our talented AoE is stronger than our base AoE, easier to use and it heals. That can't be right.
KJC seems fine, additional ticks happen when MG deals damage, works exactly as described.

[Xelnath]

Not changing Seed.

Affliction is the multi-target, multi-dot prime spec. I am not comfortable with aff. being amazing at multi-dot *AND* being able to just drop seeds via spam.

That said, our 10-target tests are still showing affliction with very high aoe numbers ( tied with all 3 warlock specs for highest aoe damage on a caster)

[Grubjuice]

using which strategy? Seed alone or seed+harvest or Seed+Dots?

[alexw]

Not changing Seed.

Affliction is the multi-target, multi-dot prime spec. I am not comfortable with aff. being amazing at multi-dot *AND* being able to just drop seeds via spam.

That said, our 10-target tests are still showing affliction with very high aoe numbers ( tied with all 3 warlock specs for highest aoe damage on a caster)

The thing is we don't want SoC to be amazing damage we want it to be easy(ish) to use, right now it is extremely clunky. Myself if you nerfed its damage to 10% less than demo/destro aoe but made it spammable I'd be happy. It's the clunkiness not the damage that everyone hates.

[Phoenexis]

Not changing Seed.

Affliction is the multi-target, multi-dot prime spec. I am not comfortable with aff. being amazing at multi-dot *AND* being able to just drop seeds via spam.

That said, our 10-target tests are still showing affliction with very high aoe numbers ( tied with all 3 warlock specs for highest aoe damage on a caster)

Could you please tell us why our points aren't valid regarding the use of CC in a PvP environment?


And do you have any changes in mind for FoX as you had previously stated?

[Hellfury]

Xelnath can you have another look at Sacrifical Pact, I know you guys want to buff it because not may warlocks take it, 10 to 20sec is good but maybe remove it of the GBC aswell.

That said, our 10-target tests are still showing affliction with very high aoe numbers ( tied with all 3 warlock specs for highest aoe damage on a caster

How long does that 10targets live cause that maters ALOT.

[Xelnath]

Xelnath can you have another look at Sacrifical Pact, I know you guys want to buff it because not may warlocks take it, 10 to 20sec is good but maybe remove it of the GBC aswell.

Done. Sac Pact never made sense on the global tbh.

[Nerraw]

Done. Sac Pact never made sense on the global tbh.

You, Sir, are made of win and awesome.

[Hellfury]

Done. Sac Pact never made sense on the global tbh.

Wow thanks, I can see me totaly using it both in PVP and PVE now

[HhitSappens]

Any word about if wands are fully working while in meta?

Also, I found a weird "priority" bug on live, atm as demo, if your pet dies you get the "demonic rebirth" buff, but if you are in demon form, the game gives priority to the instant-DemonicFury summon instead of consuming the buff, I've reported that in the official forums. Can someone check for me if it got "fixed"?

Also, if you are in the will of testing stuff:
-Did they fix Demo Immo aura to match the actual area of effect if Mannoroth's fury is learned?
-For some weird reasons, single target Enfeeblement x Aura of Enfeeblement were giving different results, the single target version was slowing casts time by 50% while the aoe one only by 25%. Did it got fixed?

[Kaizers]

I had a look into this after watching my Service Felguard die (yet again) to something stupid, it seem the Void has ~50% armor, whereas everything else has only 40%; is this correct (am not using the Glyph btw)? I also recall a post by GC saying pets should receive 170% of armor, or more if you're a clothy, and yet the character panel shows only a 100% share.

I don't have many problems with the Voidwalker, what I do have problems with is the Felguard. I said this in another thread but it does bear repeating, whenever any add/mob/etc gets rooted they generally one shot the closest pet. I'm glad I don't have to play demo or use a pet as affliction, it's really that bad.

In challenge modes my pet dies several times per run.

Pet's shouldn't be invincible but I think mob behavior where they instantly kill pets close to them while rooted should be changed somehow.

[Dalmasca1]

1) In general, it is difficult to store embers for a burn phase unless we simply stop casting to let our mana bar refill. Fel Flame is not a useful movement ability for obvious reasons (20% mana cost).

I keep seeing this sentiment, but I have rarely experienced it. Over-spamming FF is often the culprit. If you use your portal/gatway and Burning Rush, your movement time shouldn't be more than a few GCDs. Additionally, you can sometimes plan ahead and hold off on the Conflagrates before a movement phase. Lastly, higher haste ratings smooths this effect out a lot.

2) I also use Havoc with a [@focus][@mouseover] macro. There has to be a way to improve this ability to make it more competitive with Affliction/Demo on 2 target fights. I like that Shadowburn works with it.

WTB 1-2 more charges. Being able to generate a whole ember just through Havoc-casts would be nice.

3) What kind of improvement are you seeing in Desto damage with the extra embers being generated by Conflag? My thought is that Immolate regular ticks should also generate embers and that fel flame crits should generate 2 embers instead of one.

Immolate tick crits do generate embers, and FF crits DO generate 2 embers. Check the tooltip.

4) Lastly our AOE suffers when we only have a few targets in that we are not regenerating embers fast enough under F&B to maintain F&B Incinerate spam. But I do like the Destro AOE rotation (much better than affliction).

This is only the case with 3-4 targets, which is admittedly, not destro's forte. You'd be better off multi-dotting followed by Havoc cleave.

[noaim]

Not changing Seed.

Affliction is the multi-target, multi-dot prime spec. I am not comfortable with aff. being amazing at multi-dot *AND* being able to just drop seeds via spam.

That said, our 10-target tests are still showing affliction with very high aoe numbers ( tied with all 3 warlock specs for highest aoe damage on a caster)

I'd love to see this test. And even so, a shorter cast time with reduced damage to compensate for the extra seeds you get up would at least make it a lot more desireable to use. The mechanic itself is rather neat, like on Elegon, seed up adds while pulling em together, then once they are bunched they start exploding. Very nice, if it wasnt for the fact that you can basically choose between eating the explosion or take KJC if you want to be actually get any seeds casted.

[Inshabel]

Any word about if wands are fully working while in meta?

Also, I found a weird "priority" bug on live, atm as demo, if your pet dies you get the "demonic rebirth" buff, but if you are in demon form, the game gives priority to the instant-DemonicFury summon instead of consuming the buff, I've reported that in the official forums. Can someone check for me if it got "fixed"?

Also, if you are in the will of testing stuff:
-Did they fix Demo Immo aura to match the actual area of effect if Mannoroth's fury is learned?
-For some weird reasons, single target Enfeeblement x Aura of Enfeeblement were giving different results, the single target version was slowing casts time by 50% while the aoe one only by 25%. Did it got fixed?

Wands are still bugged for Meta, I think GC was breaking his head over it, and it seemed like a though nut to crack, I just (reluctantly) respecced untill the issue can be dealt with